Shisha Heat Management

How Many Coals

Start low. You can always add, but you cannot un-burn a bowl.

Two natural coconut coals on a standard phunnel with a heat management device is the right starting point for the great majority of blonde leaf. Dark leaf takes the same or fewer, despite feeling like it should take more.

• Blonde leaf, HMD: two coals.
• Blonde leaf, foil: two to three, spread around the edge.
• Dark leaf: one to two. It holds heat and burns sooner.
• Cigar leaf: the least of all. Start with one and be patient.

Where They Go

Around the rim, evenly spaced, never sitting in the centre. A phunnel bowl has a spire in the middle and the tobacco packed around it, so centre heat cooks the part you are trying to protect.

With three coals think of a clock face and place them at twelve, four and eight. With two, opposite each other. The aim is an even ring of heat that pulls down through the leaf rather than a hot spot that burns straight through it.

The Ten Minute Rotation

This is the habit that separates a good session from a mediocre one, and almost nobody does it.

At around ten minutes, give each coal a quarter turn and shift it slightly around the rim. You are moving the hot face onto fresh tobacco and breaking up the ash that has started to insulate the coal. It costs five seconds and it is usually why a bowl seems to come back to life.

• Rotate at ten minutes, then roughly every ten to fifteen after.
• Tap the ash off while you are there. Ashed-over coals run cool and then you wrongly add another.
• If flavour drops, rotate before you even think about adding a coal.

Lighting Them Properly

A coal is ready when it is glowing orange across the whole surface with grey ash forming at the edges. Any black left means it is still off-gassing, and that goes into your lungs and your flavour.

On a burner that takes three to five minutes for natural coconut coals. Turn them once. The impatience here is where a lot of headaches come from, and I mean that literally.

Reading the Bowl

The bowl tells you what it needs, if you know the signals.

• Harsh, catching the throat. Too much heat. Remove a coal, wait two minutes, do not add anything.
• Thin smoke, weak flavour. Too little heat or ashed coals. Rotate and tap first, add second.
• Great then suddenly gone. You ran too hot early and cooked the juice out.
• Uneven, good on one pull and harsh on the next. Coals unevenly placed. Space them properly.

Step by Step

1. Light the coals fully. Heat until glowing orange across the whole surface with grey ash at the edges, three to five minutes. No black patches.
2. Start with two. Two coals for blonde leaf, one to two for dark leaf. Start low, you can always add.
3. Place around the edge. Space them evenly around the rim of the bowl, never in the centre.
4. Wait five minutes. Let the bowl come up to temperature before judging the flavour.
5. Rotate at ten minutes. Give each coal a quarter turn, shift it around the rim, and tap off the ash.
6. Correct down, not up. If it goes harsh, remove heat and wait. Do not chase a fading bowl with extra coals.

Common Questions